This is a story studded with extraordinary achievements and historic moments, from the building of the pyramids and the conquest of Nubia, through Akhenaten's religious revolution, the power and beauty of Nefertiti, the glory of Tutankhamun's burial chamber, and the ruthlessness of Ramesses, to Alexander the Great's invasion, and Cleopatra's fatal entanglement with Rome. As the world's first nation-state, the history of Ancient Egypt is above all the story of the attempt to unite a disparate realm and defend it against hostile forces from within and without. Combining grand narrative sweep with detailed knowledge of hieroglyphs and the iconography of power, Toby Wilkinson reveals Ancient Egypt in all its complexity.

In The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt Toby Wilkinson, one of the leading Egyptologists of his generation, goes behind the dazzling mask of Ancient Egypt to make the story of one of the world's greatest (and in terms of longevity, most successful) civilisations accessible to the general reader. From the pharaohs at the apex to the slaves at the base of the pyramids they built, the unifying theme will be the darker side of pharaonic civilisation- the relentless propaganda that infiltrated every aspect of public life, the cut-throat politics that lay behind the mask of unchanging monarchy and the brutality and repression that underpinned royal authority will all be fully examined in this major history that will draw on the latest research, including the author's own original fieldwork.